


International Cooperation

by Frea_O



Category: Captain Marvel (Marvel Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Space, F/F, NASA
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-11
Updated: 2017-08-11
Packaged: 2018-12-14 04:31:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11775561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frea_O/pseuds/Frea_O
Summary: Carol’s not happy when she has to take over new research after a co-worker falls ill, but she’s in good company. In her ear, at least.





	International Cooperation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [redstaronmyshoulder (CaptainAmelia22)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainAmelia22/gifts).



> Archiving some old fic from Tumblr (hi, Molly!). If you're looking for scientific accuracy on how the International Space Station and astronauts work, this may not be the fic for you. I can promise banter, though!

Carol raised an eyebrow when Barton sent the box spinning toward her in the reduced gravity. “Thought they pulled Cho.”

“They did.” The flight engineer gave her a giant, shit-eating grin. The same one he’d given her since training. “HQ decided her research was too valuable to wait.”

“We don’t have any microbiologists up here.”

“No, but we do have an old bio minor. Close enough.”

Being that she’d graduated at the top of her class at both the Air Force Academy and MIT and then in the top three in training in the history of the program, it didn’t take long for Carol to put together what Barton meant. She groaned even before he saluted her. “So I’m being pulled off the BEAM program.”

“Shouldn’t have bragged about that fancy New England education. But look at it this way, Danvers.” Barton floated another box over to her. “At least you’re not having to swab the US modules for microbes.”

“I was going to make you and Barnes do that anyway,” Carol said, pushing the box through to the others.

~ * ~

If she couldn’t lead the way to the moon, Commander Carol Danvers wanted to forge the path to Mars. Unfortunately, the technology wasn’t there yet—an endless source of frustration and disappointment for her. So frustrating and disappointing that, when the opportunity for a year on the station came up with the express purpose of studying the physiological and biomedical effects of prolonged time in space on astronauts, she was one of the first to volunteer.

The mission had been proposed by Roscosmos, but NASA had been quick to jump on. The Russians had selected James Buchanan Barnes, born in Volgograd, raised in Brooklyn, and no stranger to time on the station, though he and Carol had never been on the same expedition before. For three years, they’d prepped for the mission, which would span over the course of three different crews, and 372 days in space. Scientists might worry about the effects of low gravity on their bodies, but Carol worried more about getting along with her crewmate. After all, space was lonely and a year could be a long time.

Luckily, he liked the Dodgers and not the Yankees. They got along perfectly well.

~ * ~

With Cho’s research added to her docket, Carol switched to a different shift. Romanova kept the same hours, but she was usually working in the Russian modules and rarely drifted over to say hi to Carol (though occasionally she did drop by for a game of cards and to take all of Carol’s money). Most nights, Carol was left in the lab with only the voices from headquarters and people on Twitter to keep her company.

She opened the box that contained the parts that Cho had designed for this experiment and frowned. “No instructions?” she asked over the comm back to base. “Even that couch I got at Ikea had a manual.”

“Somebody will be by to walk you through it shortly, Commander.”

“Good. Tell them to use small words. The Ikea instructions had pictures.”

“I’m sure I can come up with something.” 

She didn’t recognize the new voice that butted in, but she did frown. The screen on her comm panel indicated that the line was coming in from the Columbus Control Center in Germany rather than Houston. That explained the accent, then. “Who’s this? Kate Middleton?”

“Jessica Drew. I’m the lead scientist on the POEMS program, or the one on the ground, at least. I’ll be your main liaison while Dr. Cho’s recovering.”

“I hope you’re good at small words. I’m more of a pilot than anything else.”

“Great.” It was amazing how much sarcasm this Jessica Drew could convey in a single word. Carol found herself grinning even as she shoved pieces of Dr. Cho’s equipment back into the box. “And I sound nothing like Kate Middleton, for the record. She’s upper crust, I’m from East London.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I could take her in a fight, too.”

“You realize every word you say to me is being recorded.”

“I’ve said nothing I’m ashamed of. Now, how far are you on assembling the equipment?”

Carol looked down at the storage crates. “I got the box open?”

Jessica sighed. “This is going to be a long night, isn’t it.”

~ * ~

It took six hours and several emails before Carol was able to run the diagnostic checks on the portable lab. By the time she tested the last of the connections, she could hear her very sarcastic (and amusing) liaison yawning. “What time is it there?” she asked, yawning herself.

“Four a.m.”

“Not a night owl, huh?”

“They shoved me on a plane to get me here in time to assist you, I haven’t slept in two days. I’m going to go see the inside of my hotel room and then the inside of my eyelids. In that order.” A pause. “Read me the status numbers on your monitor? I want to confirm they match.”

Carol did so, and carefully recalibrated the machine until the numbers did match. Patience was something space had taught her. Everybody else had tried; space was the only thing that worked. “Third shift’s almost over,” she said. “We’ll have to pick this up next shift.”

She heard grumbling on the other end of the line. “I’m about to become nocturnal, aren’t I?”

“If you want to keep the experiment up, looks like. Don’t worry, day and night have no meaning in space, so you’ll be all alone in your misery.” Carol put a cheerful note in her voice and bit her tongue to keep from laughing. Jessica’s _fuck you, Danvers_ hadn’t been quiet enough for the comm not to pick up on it. “I’m logging off because I need to check in with Romanova. Talk to you tomorrow.”

“Good night and/or day.”

Carol managed to wipe the grin off her face before she headed into the crew quarters, as Natasha would only have questions.

~ * ~

It was a couple more days before she heard from Jessica again, though she sent three more emails checking on data from the mobile lab. Dr. Cho’s research took a backseat as they prepped Piotr for a spacewalk, and Carol had other mission objectives she needed to see to while Expedition 47 was on the station with her. When she saw the ESA light blinking on the panel, she grinned. 

“Danvers here.”

“Good morning and/or afternoon.” Jessica sounded much more awake this time. “Are you ready to commit exciting and terrible acts of science?”

“Always.”

“Dr. Cho says the preliminary results are promising, so all of our swearing about putting the equipment together appears not to have been in vain.”

Carol frowned. It sounded like the other woman was talking with her mouth full. “What are you eating?”

“Fish and chips. Took me forever to find a good English pub in this tiny dump of a town. It’s delicious. I’d offer you some, but well…”

“Aren’t you supposed to explore the local culture of wherever you’re visiting?”

“Fish and chips trumps that. Okay, so we think there might be a slight malfunction in the wiring of the heating element, which means I’m going to talk you through a fix…”

“With your mouth full.”

“Hey, you have that dehydrated ice cream or whatever. If you’re hungry, go get some of that.”

“I’d rather have fish and chips.”

“Too bad. I’m not sharing.”

Jessica Drew, Carol decided then and there, was a little bit of an asshole. It made her smile. She’d always liked assholes.

And she definitely minded third shift less now.

~ * ~

Unfortunately—or maybe fortunately—science meant a lot of waiting. So whenever Carol was following Dr. Cho’s emailed instructions and listening to Jessica talk her through the data gathering, she usually had a lot of downtime. With most of the techs at NASA, she talked baseball (they sometimes streamed some of the games for her). With Jessica, it was movies. Mostly because she hadn’t seen a single damn good movie in her life.

“ _Breakfast Club_? How do you miss seeing _Breakfast Club_?”

“I didn’t have a normal childhood. Also, I’m English and don’t consider movies about the American teenage experience to be as universal as you seem to.”

“ _Breakfast Club_ transcends itself. It’s a classic for a reason. You can always find yourself in one of the characters.”

“I find myself in Germany talking to a nerd in a flying tin can, that’s where I find myself.”

“You’re the station liaison for one of the leading microbiologists on the planet, I think calling me a nerd is a little bit hypocritical. And as mean as you are, you’d get along well with Molly Ringwald’s character.”

“I’m not mean, I’m honest.”

“Tomato, tomahto.” 

Jessica scoffed and asked her to confirm a new batch of numbers. Carol used one of the station cameras to take a few pictures of the microbes in their sterile environment. In the last shot, she flipped off the camera and emailed that to Jessica.

Carol’s heart fluttered traitorously in her chest as Jessica’s laugh rolled over the comms. “Cute, very cute,” she said. “I’m setting that as my desktop background right now.”

“You’d better.”

~ * ~

“What do you look like, anyway?” Carol asked three weeks into working with Jessica.

A pause. “Why do you ask?”

“Just curious. You don’t seem to be on Twitter and Dr. Cho’s research page only lists your name.”

“And you want to make sure I’m not secretly Kate Middleton.”

“I hear she’s a little busy with the two kids now, so that wasn’t actually one of my theories. Are you getting these numbers?”

“Starting to. The link’s a little slow tonight. And, um, I’m pretty average, I guess. Brown hair, brown eyes, a little taller than your average scientist. Either that or I’m covered in tattoos and have my septum pierced. I also wear a spiked collar.”

“Hot,” Carol said, laughing.

“Well, yeah, I’m definitely that. I thought that was obvious. Why do you even want to know?”

“Like I said. Just curious.”

They had to cut their session short due to Carol being needed on a critical repair problem that JAXA had noticed, but three hours later, her email beeped with a new message from Jessica. The attachment showed a picture: she had taken a selfie, but she’d covered her face with a crude drawing of a tattoo covered pig with a pierced snout, wearing a leather jacket. Carol could see brown, wavy hair behind it.

She laughed and saved the picture.

~ * ~

Her last session with Jessica took place two months later. Barton would be taking over the research from another member on Cho’s team, as Carol and Bucky’s year in space was up and they would be leaving on a Soyuz shuttle, landing in Russia to begin several months of testing before what Bucky was sardonically calling “Not a Victory Tour, but Totally a Victory Tour.”

“Well, Danvers, it’s been fun, but I have to go now,” was all Jessica said, and Carol was left with a dead connection.

~ * ~

It took three weeks for the Victory-Not-Victory Tour to reach the ESA Headquarters in Paris. They were paraded around in front of the execs and introduced to some of the veteran astronauts—Carol’s favorite part—but the minute she could slip away, she did so. If her Google skills were correct, and she had no reason to doubt them, Dr. Cho kept a lab not far from the Pont Neuf. She applied a little charm and tossed her name and NASA around to get through the door, and, plastic visitor badge clipped to her blazer, headed back to the office the admin had pointed out.

The woman inside it had red chucks propped up on her desk and was leaning back dangerously in her seat. She wore a red lab coat over a yellow tank top, with yellow goggles perched on her head.

She appeared to be asleep.

Carol just stood in the doorway and smirked. No tattoos, no pierced septum, and she definitely wasn’t average.

“I take it back,” she said, leaning a shoulder against the door frame. Jessica startled and flailed, but didn’t crash to the ground. She gaped at Carol in absolute shock. “Maybe you’d identify more with Judd Nelson than Molly Ringwald.” 

A grin split Jessica’s face. “Excuse me, I watched that terrible movie because of you and clearly I was Ally Sheedy.”

“My mistake.” Carol stepped inside and held a hand out. “Carol Danvers. Nice to officially meet you.”

“Jessica Drew.” They shook hands and electricity surged up Carol’s fingertips, making her smile harder. “What brings a decorated space jockey such as yourself to my office? I thought you hated microbiology.”

“Oh, I do. But…” Carol raised her eyebrows. “I figured you’d know a good place to get some fish and chips.”

Jessica smiled. “Okay, but I’m still not sharing.”

~ * ~ * ~


End file.
